Running
by Anne I Am
Summary: Karkat doesn't come from the best home. He doesn't go to the best school either. So he runs between the two. From bullies, home, personal issues, past events that he says are his fault. He meets Sollux who just might be capable of making him stop running. Rated M because I did indeed attempt to write the dirty in future chapters. The characters belong to Hussie blahblah, you know.
1. Chapter 1

Have mercy on this! This is the first fanfic I have ever submitted publicly to the interwebs!

Opinions are wanted on whether or not I should post the rest of it. Here goes nothin'.

-bursts out of metaphorical shell, realizes looks stupid and slowly recoils back in-

Rated M because I did indeed attempt to write the dirty in future chapters~blushu/

* * *

"GET HIM!" You hear and you don't know if it's possible, but you pick up your pace.

You are Karkat Vantas and you are running, maybe for your life.

You turn into an ally of two tall brick buildings. You run around the corner and then BANG. You fell. You hear some other things fall. Metal things? Pots? Maybe you heard some glass break? You also realize that, whatever you've fallen on did a fabulous job of breaking your fall.

You sit up and look down and ohmygod you fell on some kid. He looks confused, annoyed, and a bit concerned(But mainly annoyed). You observe his features for just a second. He's got long black hair in the front, stacked in the back, pale, although tanner than you, and he had managed to keep on a pair of old fashioned oval shaped shades. You stare for a second until you hear him clear his throat, annoyed. You frantically get up.

"W-Watch where you're going!" You stammer out. Not sure if your blushing or not. But why would you be blushing? You're probably not.

"I'm not the one running through dark alleyth thwinging around cornerth am I?" He says all too bluntly in a nearly monotone voice. You grimace at him for a moment "The hell are you doing running like that around here anywayth? Not very thmart." He says, annoyed, getting up and brushing himself off. You were about to respond, but were quickly brought back to more important matters as the familiar sound of voices and footsteps draw near.

"shit!" You mutter out. And turn to run and find a dead end. You go to turn the other way when the boy informs, "It's no use, that ways a dead end too." You glare at him.

"Okay genius, which way can I go?" You growl.

"Come here." He motions towards the entrance he's standing outside of. The footsteps draw closer.

"Why?"

"I can help!" He insists. You don't know if you should… How do you he's trustworthy?

"Why!?"

"Trust me?" He extends a hand out to you. You glare before angrily snapping.

"How do I know you won't just toss me out when you see who I'm running from?!"

"JUST TRUTHT ME!" He insists.

"I-I-…" You hesitate to move and you realize that the footsteps are dangerously close. There's a sudden yank at your sleeve of your long sweater and he tugs you into the door he'd been standing outside of. He shuts the door and thank god he did it when he did because you heard Eridan and his gang appear just then. He looks through the peep hole.

You stare anticipating for him to say something. "Kay, they're gone." A sigh of relief escapes your lips. You lean against a nearby wall and slide down it, curling your knees to your chest, wrapping your arms around them. Your hearts racing and your face is red and your body is sweaty. You seriously thought you were going to get pummeled. That's not to say that you're incapable of fighting. You simply can't fight five people simultaneously.

You realize you're in a kitchen, a restaurant kitchen. You want to say it's an Asian restaurant, but to avoid offending the kid who practically just saved your life, you don't ask.

He looks at you a bit concerned now, rather than annoyed, and walks over to slide down next to you. You look away as he does so. "Tho, you got involved with Eridan, huh? You alright?" He asks. You can't find much of a voice right now so you simply nod your head. You sit in silence for a moment.

"Tho then, what'th your name?" He asks you.

" Oh, u-uh. . . It's. . . Karkat. . .Vantas." He raises his eyebrows. You just know he's going to comment on it. Everyone does.

"One hell of a name." He snorts and chuckles at you.

"Shut the fuck up." You say in a low embarrassed voice, tucking your face a bit more in your arms and knees to hide a faint blush.

"Well it'th not that bad. You can, at leatht, pronouncthe your name." You glance at him curiously as if asking his name. "My name's Sollux. Sollux Captor." You un-tuck your head as he holds out his hand to shake hands with you? You're a bit timid but you smirk as you reach out to shake his hand.

"Thollux Captor or Sollux Captor?" You ask mockingly and chuckle so he playfully smacks the back of your head.

"You're really pushing your luck Karkat. You know the option to throw you out in the rain with thothe guyth' thtill thtands." He grins at you mischievously.

"They're more than likely LONG gone now. They never stick around for too long." He gives you a puzzled look.

"How often do you get into trouble? Do I have to worry about cops now, for saving your ass?" You jerk forward to face him, placing a hand on the ground for balance and face him.

"Wha- NO! I'm not a trouble maker! HE starts with me!" You defend and he raises a questioning eyebrow at you. You put back on an angry face and put your back against the wall angrily, crossing your arms. "Whatever, don't fucking believe me. Not like anyone ever does anyway." He sighs and looks up to the ceiling.

"If I didn't believe you, you wouldn't be here right now. But, you could avoid getting into trouble all together. Do you tell your parentth?" You ignore the question. The only "parent" you have would probably encourage your tormentor. A few seconds of silence creep before he speaks up.

"Well, the broken glath out back in the ally ithn't going to clean it'th thelf up." He got up holding out his hand to help you up. You hesitantly accept it and he pulls you to your feet. You are now both standing and you have concluded that he's a got quite a few inches on you. Boy, were you fucked over by genes. He then rummages through some cabinets and pulls out two mini trash bags and hands you one.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" You spit out a bit too rudely.

"You bumped into me, may I remind you." He counters. You know he's right.

"Fine but let's make this quick!" You growl and snatch the bag.

You leave your backpack on the floor where you sat down. He opens the door that leads to the alleyway and you both walk out, him shutting the door behind both of you. You study what appears to be six or seven cats eating some food that's scattered on the floor. That's so cute. You love cats. They're fuzzy walking pieces of furniture that cuddle occasionally.

"Why are there so many cats out here?"

"Well, I usually feed them the left overs, but you know, you ran into me and sent the dishes flying." He shoots you an unenthusiastic look. You look down guiltily and realize now that some of the cats are licking food off broken glass.

You subconsciously gasp, run over to the cats and franticly pull them away and attempt to shoo them. You've forgotten all about this guy when you hear him chuckle. You blush and look over at him.

"The fuck are you laughing at?" You snap.

He smiles and says. "I jutht- your name ith Karkat, and clearly you like cats." He grins at you.

"I thuppothe thatth all thortth of thilly ithn't it, Thollux?" You bite back, deliberately mispronouncing your S's. He glares at you half-heartedly.

"Maybe I'll just go inthide and make you clean thith up all by yourthelf." He grins. You look away, growl, and mumble something along the lines of 'let's just get this the fuck over with'. He chuckles again. You both set to work, picking up the glass you made him drop. You occasionally nudge cats away and hear him chuckle each time.

"Tho, are you albino or thomething?" He looks over at you, still collecting glass off the floor. You avert your gaze and grimly reply.

"No fuckass. Because having pale skin, nearly white hair and red eyes is totally fucking normal and not albino." He sighs and looks away both proceed to silently pick up glass.

"You have freckles…" You stop a moment at the statement, waiting for a reason as to why it was relevant.

"Your point?" Damn, you didn't even know you could sound so sassy.

"You have freckles too, you left that out…" You roll your eyes.

"Congratulations. You've pointed out yet another flaw in Karkat Vantas. You aren't missing a fucking trick, are you?" You state rather than ask. He sighs noisily again.

"I wasn't offending you.- and I never said it was a flaw" He almost snaps before taking a heavy breath to calm himself. "Actually I think it's all pretty neat." He Shrugs and looks away.

"I hate it." You say grimly. You grab hold of a piece of glass a bit too hard and cut your finger, enough to let a drop or two seep out. "fuck. . ." You growl out.

"You okay?" He stands up straight and hurries over to you. He reaches out to grab your hand and you jerk away.

"I'm fine, I can handle it myself!" You say as you scowl at the floor. He gives you a skeptical look and grabs your hand examining your finger, resulting in you just sort of freezing. He's touching you. Willingly.

A streak of blood flows down it.

"Well, there'th no glath in it." You're half expecting him to put it in his mouth but quickly disregard that thought as he grabs a handkerchief from his back pocket and wraps your finger in it. You're just now realizing that he's wearing a vest- waiter's vest and outfit in general. You gaze at him until he breaks the silence again, putting down your hand.

"Why do you hate it?" He asks, looking down at you, meeting your eyes. You look down at the ground.

"Because, it makes me different and a fucking walking target for testosterone filled douche-bags-and what the fuck does it matter to you?" He shrugs

"If you hate it so much why don't you just dye your hair? It's not that expensive." The fact that he feels the need to point out money pisses you off, but you let it slide. It's not like you're dressed like a bum. It's probably the sweater you're swimming in.

You are a bit antsy to reply. . . But for some reason you think you can trust him. . .

"Because my mom loved it. . . She said. . ." You let out an annoyed sigh "Just. . . Nevermind." He waits a moment before responding,

"I like thingth that are different." taking off his red and blue shades to rub them on his shirt and looks you dead in the eye. You meet his gaze and are quickly greeted by two beautiful heterochromatic eyes. One eye was a deep pastel-blue, the other a dark brown- somewhat tinted red. You gawked at the view. He chuckles and puts his shades back on. "But, I guess that'th a matter of opinion." You suddenly feel bad because his eyes are definitely not a 'bad' different. Dead honest, they're gorgeous. You put your head down and blush because of what you're about to say.

"Well, that's um… That's actually really cool… Your eyes" You glance up at him and he's smiling gently at you.

"I like yours more." You blush a bit and scowl at him.

"I just fucking complemented you! Show some respect and say thank you. Don't insult me by comparing us." You snare.

He smiles. You roll you're eyes and for god know what reason, there's currently a smile sneaking onto your face. It's been quite some time since you smiled...You like this…

* * *

It's been four years since then. You are currently seventeen. Sollux is eighteen. You two have been the closest of friends since then. Inseparable. Most would agree though, that your friendship is indeed a peculiar one. You clearly are the best of friends, but you argue all the time. You wonder from time to time if your friendship is made entirely of anger. But then there are moments when all he wants to do is embrace you and hold you and other moments when you want to just be with him. You feel so relaxed with him. There's a strange sort of tranquility when you're with him, even when you're fighting.

You're sitting in the very area where the two of you had your first encounter. You're petting the cats and he's sitting beside you, watching and chuckling occasionally. This became an everyday thing.

He gave you his Pesterchum- since Facebook is lame- the day you met and started to message him more and more often to every night. The next day you went to him to return the handkerchief, which he insisted you keep. The days after that you were "petting the cats", but you know you wanted to see him. You usually stay long enough to finish any school work, with time to spare for hanging out. Now that he has a job as a computer repairer, he only goes to the restaurant occasionally. When he does go to the restaurant, you find yourself going as well to help out.

"Well, it'th getting late. Don't you uthually need to be home at a thertain time?" Your stomach suddenly twists and you franticly snatch out your phone to look at the time and FUCK it's almost 6:30! Your dad gets home around that time and that's the ONLY reason you go home so early. To avoid having to walk through the front door and risk an encounter with him. He only bothers you when he sees you and he never goes into your room.

"Shit! I need to go!" You slip your phone back into your pocket and rush through the door to retrieve your backpack. You grab it and run back out, ready to run home. He grabs your arm.

"Hey, jeez chill out, let me drive you there. I mean, you did help me clean up and all today." Your about to reject, but you figure you really don't have time.

"Okay-Okay fine, but we need to hurry!"

"Okay jeez pushy. If you want to get away from me you can just tell me you know. Follow me, my car is out front."

You follow him through the restaurant. (Japanese. It's his parent's work) You find yourself outside of a car that definitely costs more than your life. It's a corvette, yellow, and has a black stripe running along either side. He unlocks and opens your side of the door, motioning for you to get in. You're a bit hesitant so he speaks, "You're acting like you've never seen a car before, KK." Sollux only got his car about three months ago, and you only drove in it once to test drive it with him. And you don't really use cars often anyways. You usually just walk.

"Oh shut up! I'm just concerned that I'm going to break a dust particle and then have to clean out your car too." ( you did most of the work cleaning the kitchen today) He rolls his eyes behind his shades and shoves you "Just get in." You do so, plopping your backpack on your lap. He shortly gets in the driver's side and starts the car.

"Can you give me directions to your house, or do you need me to use the GPS?" He asks. Your heart is pounding slightly. You have no clue why. But it is.

"No shit Sherlock, I walk to your house all the time. It's not too far from here." You give him directions to your house until you're on a road that's straight for a while. He's walked you halfway home before. But only halfway. You always end up telling him you can walk the rest of the way home alone because, even though your house is 2 stories- it's rather small and the neighborhood isn't the greatest either. "Hey uh, Sollux?"

"Mhm~?" He responds, concentrated on the road and you wait a moment.

"Can we hang out this weekend?"

"Don't we normally, KK?" He Chuckles, Eyes focused on the road.

"Well yeah, no shit, but like, can we actually do something?" He's the only other person to have positively nicknamed you besides your mom. . . Boy, do you miss her. You look over at Sollux who has his eyes focused intensely on the road. It's not very busy, but you can never be too careful when it's raining and oh hey look, it's raining. You're not sure when it began to rain. It isn't too bad though. Just a dribble. Although it is darker than usual as a result of the clouds. "Sooooo?" You question.

"hmm-OH right! Maybe. You can stay over this weekend, but I have some online schooling to take care of so you'll have to live without me for an hour or two." He says teasingly.

"You're _so_ full of yourself. Oh!-Take a right here!" You instruct him, extending out a hand to point your finger. "The address is 34138" You tell him. He pulls up to your house shortly. It's been a little bit over ten minutes. Ten minutes that passed all too fast.

You thank him, grab your backpack and get ready to go when he tugs your sleeve.

"Hold on one second would ya," He tugs you back down. "Text me later tho we can specify plans Okay?" He demands, looking you in the eyes.

"Right. Uh, Sollux?"

"Hm?" He frees your sleeve.

"Uh, thanks. I owe you." He smiles at you.

"That's stupid to say. Consider it a favor. You don't owe me anything except maybe a new pair of earth. Mine are just about blown, thanks to all your bitching." He jokes and you flip him off.

"Fuck you!" You open the car door.

"Maybe Later KK" You hear him sing with a smile, resulting in a hidden blush from you. He's really got to chill with those jokes- he's been making more and more often.

"You're such a dick. I'll see you later."

"Bye KK." He shuffles your hair quickly.

You shut the door and sprint to the front door of your house to avoid getting too wet. Your dad will make you wait out here all night otherwise. You hear Sollux's car engine take off and disappear down the street.

* * *

Post the rest? No? Maybe? Perhaps?


	2. Chapter 2

Hey things get interesting in this chapter. blushu/  
Sorry for poorly written things and silly mistakes!

I think I left out that this is maybe dramatic depending on your personal preferences on what dramatic is?... There's no character deaths because I'd drown in tears before I could finish writing a character death so you're safe there. But I will warn that their is self harm (minor) and child abuse.( not in detail, in fact, there's no actual physical abuse inflicted on anyone by someone else because I don't have it in my little heart to do that.)

Enjoy?

* * *

You take a deep breath and open the front door shakily, more due to fear than coldness. When the door is fully opened, you find your dad passed out on the couch, which is odd. Let it be known that your dad drinks a lot every night after work, but not usually enough to pass out unless it's Friday or the weekend. You let out a sigh of relief and shut the door quietly, and head up the stairs to your room, careful not to wake your dad. You make it half-way up the stairs when the voice of you dad rattles your bones.

"What the fuck are you doing here so fucking late?" You stop dead in your tracks and turn to look at your dad who is waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Oh boy. Here goes a conversation you'v been dying to avoid.

"I was finishing work at school. . . Tutoring." You're focusing hard on your voice so that it doesn't shake.

"Well you have a fucking phone don't you? You could have called." You hear the anger rise is his voice and you're certain he's had one too many beers. You hide the fear in your voice. "There's no signal at school. . . Th-the schools in a dead spot. . .Besides, you never answer." You recall a time when you desperately needed him to pick you up from school. It was pouring and your vision could barely perceive a mere ten feet away due to the heavy downfall. Of course, he didn't answer. And you couldn't call Sollux because he didn't have a car at the time and you weren't (still aren't) lucky enough to mooch off of friends at school for rides. You trudged through the harsh weather all the way, taking you an extra thirty minutes to get home. You came home to find that he was too occupied with beer to answer his phone. He scolded you for being late and wet and you spent most of that day and night on your front porch, cold and shivering. You were sick for about two weeks with a fever, stuffy nose, coughing, and all that good stuff.

"You're a real smart ass. You just have an answer for everything don't you?" You cringe just barely at how he raises his voice suddenly and go mute. He gets angrier with your silence. "Give me your fucking phone." You shoot him a 'fuck you' look and you know that wasn't a good idea. What your about to do is ten times worse. "Yeah it's MY phone, I pay for it and I bought it." He glares at you and stomps his way up the stairs and you try to turn and run but he grabs you by your hair and swings you against the wall. You can smell alcohol in his breath as he yells at you. You shut your eyes closed as tight as possible, as if they'll maybe block the venom that spews past your own father's lips. Things along the lines of, 'you prick, mistake, you're the reason she's dead, you killed her, you ruined our lives.' When he's done yelling, he yanks your head up, and pushes you, knocking you off balance so your foot slips off the ledge of the stair it was on, resulting in you losing your balance and slipping. You grip the railing before you can tumble down, but you do stab your thigh on the corner of a stair ledge and your head hits another corner. No blood though. He walks to the couch and goes back to being a knocked out drunk. You choke back any pain inflicted sounds and shortly get up. This is definitely not the worst pain you've felt. Your thigh and ankle hurt but you manage your way up the stairs and to your room.

You get into your room, gently close the door and lock it. The pain in your ankle has you wasting no time in sitting on your bed to examine the damage. You slip off your shoe and sock with care. There's light bruising beneath you're ankle and about a layer of torn skin, not enough to make you bleed nevertheless. Time to inspect your head, which you're noticing, hurts an awful lot more than your ankle. You stand to walk over to the mirror at your dresser, but wince at the resulted sharp aching from your ankle. You alternate to using the camera on your phone instead. You hold up your phone and point it in the direction of the ache while pushing back your bangs and the mark waiting underneath is almost enough to make you shudder. It's a nasty bruise, and you wince just staring at it. It's a foul shade of purple and the color lessens as the bruise spreads. You can see it swelling and you have no idea how it's not bursting out blood. You ghost your finger gently over it and that alone makes it tingle. Some idiotic part of you tell you to poke it, so who pokes it? You do. You cringe and quickly regret the action.

You let your bangs fall over the mark, conveniently concealing it and put your phone back into your pocket. Nausea takes over you from looking at it so you avert your vision, acknowledging and disregarding the urge to vomit. It's like something out of one of the sick slasher movies Sollux makes you watch, except maybe a lot less brutal.

You choke back some anger, but it quickly swells up into tears. You can't stand him. He wouldn't have even noticed you were gone if you were quiet enough. You've been gone for days before and he hadn't noticed. The only reason he still has you is because if he kicks you out, child services will be on his ass and he'll be taken to jail. And the only reason you haven't ratted him out is because there's no family to take you and he knows it. And you don't want to burden one of two of you're only friends.

But your dad wasn't always like this. Your mother used to be able to handle him and keep him from alcohol. But the moment he heard that she'd died, he'd began drinking. Of course he did. Addiction runs strong in your family so you can't set foot near drugs or alcohol. Not that you would; although it makes it difficult when one of your only friends is immensely addicted. Granted, it's not the _worst_ drug. Just weed, it could be worse.

Nothing of yours was given to you by your dad since your mom died. You bought all of it with the money you earned with your job. Your old job that is, which was at Starbucks. You got fired. . . You snapped at a costumer, who happened to be some as from your school, for laughing at you. You also may or may not have poured coffee on him…

Tears stroll down your cheeks. You sit up on your bed and open the nightstand drawer next to you. You reach all the way in the back and pull out a small black box. You open it and there's a picture of you and your mom, a necklace she gave you, the cancer sign on it with a red dot in between in the center. You smile a little more due to upsetting, beautiful memories than anything else.

Your mom was so beautiful. She had long red hair that went down to her low back and curled angelically at the tips. She was pale like you. Her eyes where a deep emerald and people swore she was all hair dye, Lipo, enhancements and contacts. You knew that wasn't the case. You knew she was just naturally perfect. You admired her so much and still do. She was just as beautiful inside as she was out, like the outside was just the reflection of the inside.

You lift up the picture and there are three razors. You hesitate for a moment. This isn't so terrible a thing to do right? Some people escape life by committing much worse things, so you could be performing much worse methods. You end up rolling up the sleeves of your sweater. Your wrists are covered in faded cuts. You try not to cut too often and in truth, it's been a while. You know it's wrong and it shouldn't help your situation.

You pick up a razor a put it to your wrist. You breathe in deep and slowly move your arm toward you, making a straight line, cutting just deep enough to feel a sting and watch little droplets of blood pool behind the razor before you let your eyes clench shut. You hiss and lean forward, pulling the razor from your wrist. You hold it to your wrist again and repeat the act. This is wrong and it's even worse to be doing since Sollux came around.

Sollux makes you feel different, like a human. Gamzee makes you feel like that too, but Sollux- he makes you feel other things too, but you try not to contemplate those feelings too much because you start to get this odd feeling, like a churning in your stomach and then you're heart rate hastens. Would it be cliché to say that he makes you feel alive? Of course it would. Sollux just has a way of making you feel different.

The aching in your wrist is caused entirely by guilt now because you know that both Sollux and Gamzee would be aggrieved by this habit. You know you can tell them and you know they'll listen and you would feel better afterward. But then you'd be bothered at the fact that you're burdening them and no matter how many times they tell you otherwise, you won't believe them. You've stopped cutting. You don't think you want to continue either because you know it won't suffice. So what do you do now?

You're startled by an unforeseen ring and vibration in your back pocket; your phone. You put the razor down and receive a few tissues from you're nightstand. You press them against your wrist and FUCK it hurts so much more than it normally does, probably because you've refrained from doing this in such a long time.

You adjust your position, kicking off your other shoe and sock and sit up in your bed. You grab your phone from your back pocket and open your inbox. There are messages from none other than Gamzee who seems to only ever text you at the worst of times.

**6:58: wHaT's MuThErFuCkInG uP bEsT FrIeNd? YoU DiDn'T aLl Up AnD mOtHeRfUcKiNg TeXt Me So I tHoUgHt SoMeThInG wAs AlL uP aNd MoThErFuCkInG wRoNg**

**7:00: NO. I'M FINE.**

**7:00: aRe YoU lYiNg?**

**7:01: WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU ASSUME THAT I'M LYING. **

**7:01: wElL fIrSt, YoU DiDn't AlL uP aNd AsK Me HoW hIgH I wAs, AnD tHeN yoU dIdN't alL Up AnD mOtHeR fUcKiNg CuRsE aT mE fIrSt tHiNg, AnD i JuSt AlL Up AnD gOt ThIs mOtHeRfUcKiNg FeElInG tHAt sOmEtHiNg Is WrOnG.**

**7:04: DISPOSE OF THAT GUT FEELING IMMIDATELY. IT'S MALFUNCTIONING.**

**7:04: kArKaT I kNoW YoUr LyInG. TeLl mE Or I wIlL aLl Up AnD nOt sToP bUgGiNg yOu tIlL YoU dO**

**7:05: FINE OK LOOK. IT'S NOTHING. I'M ALIVE. I JUST GOT IN AN ARGUMENT WITH MY DAD. THAT'S ALL.**

**7:06: dId ThE mOtHeRfUcKeR ToUcH yOu? **

**7:07: IT DOESN'T MATTER. I'M ALIVE AND BREATHING.**

**7:07: It's a yes or no question Karkat.**

**7:08: DON'T GET ALL FORMAL AND SERIOUS WITH ME GAMZEE. I'M FINE.**

**7:08: Answer me yes or no Karkat. **

**7:10: YES… HE DID… BUT IT'S OKAY. I PROMICE I'M FINE.**

**7:10: Tell me what he did.**

**7:11: I GOT SNAPPY THAT'S ALL. I GOT SNAPPY SO HE JUST SAID WHAT I NEEDED TO HEAR.**

**7:11: Don't you motherfucking dare blame yourself. Did he hurt you?**

**7:13: NOT REALLY, HE JUST PUSHED ME A LITTLE AND I LOST MY BALANCE AND FELL A LITTLE ON THE STAIRS. BUT THAT WAS MY FAULT. I'M FUCKING CLUMSY AS HELL SO I STUMBLED.**

**7:14: I know there's more to that motherfucking story. Are you hurting yourself again?**

**How does he even know these things?**

**7:20: Karkat don't you all up and motherfucking ignore me.**

**7:20: GAMZEE PLEASE…**

**7:22: Just promise me you'll all up and talk to someone about what you're going through before you motherfucking do it. You never know what miracles just talking to people can do. As for what's going on with your dad, just stay away from him. I'm motherfucking sick of him bashing my best friend for everything.**

**7:23: THEN PROMISE ME YOU'LL LAY OFF THE POT.**

**7:23: I'Ll aLl Up AnD TrY FoR YoU BeSt FrIeNd, If yOu MoThEr FuCkIn PrOmIsE mE yOu'Ll Do As I sAy.**

**7:24: OKAY FINE, DEAL. WELL, I HAVE TO TEXT SOLLUX SO I'LL TALK TO YOU LATER.**

**7:25: bYe BeSt FrIeNd**

**7:20: you never texted me kk.**

A smile sneaks onto your face.

**7:26: EXCUSE ME FOR NOT REVOLVING A FEW MOMENTS OF MY PRCIOUS LIFE TO TALK TO YOU.**

**7:26: not okay kk. ii'm heartbroken**

**7:27: GOOD.**

**7:27: you're 2o 2weet kk**

**7:27: FUCK YOU. **

**7:28: you wii2h **

That didn't make you blush. Nope. Not at all.

**7:29: YOU ARE SO FUCKING CLEVER. I WILL HONOR YOU WITH BEING ABLE TO SPEND TOMORROW WITH ME AND ALLOW YOU TO THROW YOUR CLEVER, WITTY COMMENTS AT ME. THEN WE CAN ALSO CHILL FOR THE WEEKEND. I MEAN IF YOU DON'T HAVE PLANS.**

**7:29: ye2.**

**7:29: YES AS IN…?**

**7:30: ii'm bu22y.**

**7:31: OH... **

**7:32: ii'm kiidiing kk. ye2 we can hang out**

**7:33: ii'll be at work though, 2o can you waiit untiil 5?**

**7:33: YOU'RE A DICK AND YEAH SURE, I'LL JUST WAIT AT SCHOOL. **

**7:34: you 2ure you want two waiit 2o long? ii can piick you up at your hou2e**

**7:35: NO. ALTERNIA HIGH. I HAVE SOME AFTER SCHOOL TUTORING. **

You feel terrible for lying but, the last thing you want is to stay home. . .

**7:36: that'2 2 extra hour2 of work and 2tudyiing but ii gue22. ii don't unde2tand why though you have 2traiight a'2**

**7:37: YEAH WELL, I WANT TO GET EXCEPTED INTO A GOOD COLLEGE. NOT ALL OF US HAVE ONLINE SCHOOLING AND THE WORLD GREATEST SEARCH ENGINE AT OUR FINGERTIPS AT ALL TIMES. BUT YOU'LL BE THERE AROUND 5:30 OR SOMETHING?**

**7:38: iif ii could u2e a 2earch engiine ii would but they have a way of modiitoriing iit. but anyway2 ye2**

**7:39: GASP. THERE ARE THINGS THAT YOU CAN'T HACK YOUR WAY OUT OF. AND OK COOL, SEE YOU THEN**

**7:40: ii can iif ii want but iit'2 not nece22ary 2iince ii already under2stand the material. And okay kk**

**7:40: SURE CAPTOR. I BET YOU CHEAT YOUR WAY AROUND THE SYSTEM. ANYWAYS… WHAT'S UP?**

**7:41: 2o you aren't denyiing my ama2ing hackiing 2kiils? and the roof**

**7:42: WOW SOLLUX. YOU ARE JUST SO WITTY AND CLEVER. YOU ARE THE FUCKING KING OF CLEVER. **

**7:42: you're the kiing of loud and obnoxiou2. **

**7:43: FUCK YOU**

**7:43: DON'T YOU DARE SAY YOU WISH!**

**7:44: eheheh… you wii2h.**

**7:45: CAPTOR **

**7:45: techniicaly ii diidn't 2ay iit**

**7:46: YOU ARE REDICULOUS.**

You feel a smile tug its way across your face as the two of you ramble. Hours go by and before you know it, Sollux has managed to make you sleep, even without being physically present.

**Be the one Karkat was texting.**

:o)

**No not you, the other one.**

You are Sollux Captor and you are currently sitting on your bed with Karkat Vantas making out. He has stomach arching against you and his arms thrown around your neck. What started off as innocent kiss was now an intense war of the lips. Hands tangled in hair, skin touching, hearts racing, sloppy kissing noises, and lip biting. You have his face cupped in your hands and tilt his head for easier access as you slide your tongue across his lips. He gives you access immediately, hands tangled in your hair and pushing you deeper into the kiss.

Your back is against your bed and his legs are parted on either side of your thighs. You feel like this kiss will last forever just like this. But he quickly surprises you with light grinding of his hips against yours. You move a hand onto his thigh and move it with his now grinding hips. Your pants are growing unbelievably tight and you can feel that the same applies for him.

You pull him down and grind your hips thoroughly with his, eliciting him to moan into your mouth which is about all you can take when you abruptly switch positions, pinning him on the mattress below you. He looks so vulnerable beneath you, flushed face, panting, his eyes filled with lust. You smirk and lean down to run your tongue along the side of his neck and he shivers and groans. He breathes deeply at the feeling of your tongue tasting his neck.

You smirk mischievously down at him, lean down and kiss the crook of his neck gently and trail kisses up his neck until you reach his ear and nibble at the tip. He wraps his arms around your neck and moans quietly. You run your hands up his shirt and then slowly down his stomach, ghosting their way back up to his chest. His own hands are imitating yours, but going in a different direction. He cups both his hands over the bulge of your pants. You bring your lips down to his neck and bite down, his head falls back and he keens out your name, but the sound is distorted and when your eyes swing back open, you find yourself staring up at the roof. You're alone in your bed and the replacement of Karkat is the hand in your pants.

"Fuck!" You hiss out. Another dream-tease about your best friend. How sick are you? You swing off your covers and make your way to the restroom.

**Wake up Karkat.**

You've been here before. It's your home- your old home that is. There's your mom, your dad, and you. You're all sitting on the couch watching a movie. You're all smiling and laughing too, even your dad. Sometimes you forget that it was like this at some point. You forgot that your dad used to smile like that. Hell, you forgot he was capable of smiling in general.

Suddenly you're on the couch. You look to see I your mom and dad are still there but they've both disappeared. The T.V. makes a bizarre buzzing sound and you look over at it. It's a movie. One you've seen, but the audio is weird or, at least it would be if the audio wasn't just continuous beeping. You squint at it and try to focus when two arms snake around your chest from behind, making you jerk. The voice that says your name after though, it's soothing, its… "Sollux?" You turn to face him but the moment you do you wake up.

You're phone alarm is buzzing and you squirm in your bed and turn it off. That was an odd dream. No, that was really weird. Oh well, time for hell *cough cough* you mean school.

You really consider not going to school but you have too much work from your classes, especially since you were bumped up a grade, putting you and Sollux on the same grade level (Senior). Although the classes are generally fairly simple still. Besides, you have a date *cough cough* you mean, plans to hang out with a friend and frankly, your pickup place is there. You sigh and drag yourself out of bed, take off your dirty clothes that you forgot to take off the night prior. You take a look at your text messages. There's a few from Gamzee, him congratulating you on your plans with Sollux for god only knows why. Then there are two from Sollux.

**12:08: I'M FUCKING TIRED.**

**12:08: then go two 2leep **

**12:18: good niight kk, 2ee you twomorrow**: Looks like you pass out before you could respond.

You really haven't the slightest clue as to what you will equip today. You know it's going to be hot and humid out, so something short sleeved would be nice, although you'll be damned if you wear anything other than one of your turtleneck sweaters. Or at least not right now. Your scars are still all too visible and you really don't need anyone calling them out. That would be embarrassing and just downright awkward. Sollux has already caught a glimpse of them and asked you about it. You felt so bad making him worry. The only thing you could do was tell him you hadn't touched a razor in months (This _was_ true.)

You slip on a sweater; nothing underneath because you know you'll die of heat later otherwise. You pull on a pair of faded grey jeans and your black vans, comb your messy white hair, grab your backpack before shoving some clothing into it, and quietly head to the door.

* * *

I hope my warnings didn't beat around the bush too much... My apologies if they did ^^;

By the way, I'm also sorry for taking a while to post the rest of the story. I've just been scrutinizing it very carefully to try and make sure there's no ridiculous mistakes. I Probably didn't scrutinize close enough though... Next chapter will be up at soon as I'm done looking over it too! I'll get it in asap! Again, sorry for the wait!

Ok now, I'm going to stop ranting!


	3. Chapter 3

**I'm going to throw out there that I love Eridan and that he is a precious baby. However, _somone _had to be the highschool antagonist and alksdfdf I apologize v. v **

**Well, here's the next chapter. Drama drama drama FLUFF. **

* * *

**Be the anti-social hermit who's too socially inept to go to public school.**

What? No. Just 'cause you're enrolled in online classes doesn't mean you don't have to wake up early and you have like, three tests. Fuck off.

**Fine, Be Karkat.  
**

You are currently at school. Your day has been decent so far. You make sure that there isn't a second where you're not being monitored by a teacher or there aren't any other students around. It would be bad to be caught alone, especially considering the fact that you are probably Eridan's number one target. You occasionally see a friend of his, but you know how they function. Their just his puppets and don't dare do anything without his sanctioning.

Once school had FINALLY ended after what had felt like ages, you rush out of your finale class and Disney-walk your way to the library. You safely arrive and make your way to one of the book aisles. You pull out _Death Cloud_ –a teenage Sherlock novel because online reviews say it has a cute little romance and the storyline seems pretty cool. 3:27. Yep. You'll be here for quite some time. You sit down in the aisle, back against the shelves and doze off into your book.

You're far past half of the way through said chosen book when you're startled by your phone's buzz. It's Sollux.

**5:24: hey kk, ii'm at the front of your 2chool. ready two go? **

**5:24: YEAH, I'M ON MY WAY NOW. BE THERE IN 5 MINUTES.**

**5:25: kk**

**5:25: WHAT?**

**5:25: no ii mean kk a2 iin 'ok'**

**5:26: OH… I KNEW THAT…**

**5:26: kk**

**5:27: FUCKING STOP IT.**

**5:27: eheheh 3 **

You roll your eyes and shove your phone back into your pocket, gather your things and head over to the door. You take a deep breath and continue your slow pace to the door and when you're out of view you dash down the stairs and through the hallways. You make it to the door that leads out to the student pick-up area. A sigh of relief escapes your lips and you head out to the vehicle when you the sound of a voice startles you.

"Karkat." You hesitate before you crane your neck and find that said voice belongs to none other than Eridan. "Oh don't worry, I won't physically hurt you."

"Not like you could." You bite. He simply rolls his eyes but he knows you're right.

"I wanted to ask you something." You twist around a bit before snapping

"What the hell do you want? I really don't understand where you get off messing with me and then saying I'm not worth it when we're alone. It's probably because when we're one on one you know I could kick your sorry ass-" He interrupts you, the words coming from his mouth hang in the air and next thing you know the air feels thick and you think it may actually be making breathing more difficult.

"You are familiar with _Divat's Magazine_?" His eyes angle at a certain degree that makes your stomach churn and his mouth twists into an impish grin "There was a particular article in it by which I came across, one with a rather beautiful Turkish woman- a model, who had an unfortunate accident and died." The air is caught in your throat and you can't choke out anything.

"Lütuf, was her name if I recall correctly." The mentioning of her name stabs at your heart and you waste not a moment getting out to the Parking lot, but not quick enough, because you can still hear him say. "It's a shame she died. Probably wasn't even worth it." And your eyes begin to water, but you choke tears back before you get to Sollux's car, trying your best to hide the limp in your leg from your tumble on the stairs. You hope you don't look hurt or upset. You really do. Last thing you want to do is explain _that_ scenario.

He looks at you a little muddled. "What took you so-…hey you alright?" He asks. You swallow hard and then force out

"Yeah I'm fine. . . So where exactly are we going?" You ask as he pulls out of the school parking lot and to the road.

"Well, where do you want to go today?" You glance over at him and force an annoyed look.

"Well you're the one driving genius. You decide."

"KK, I could drive around all day if it were up to me. So that's what we're going to do if you don't decide on something." He raises a questioning brow at you and that does something funny to your heart beat.

"Well, how 'bout a movie?" you suggest. He shrugs in agreement.

"Sounds good. Theater, or what?"

"Uhh. . .Well, could we rent one and maybe watch it at your place?" You hesitate. You're not a big fan of watching movies in public because you ALWAYS cry at least a whole fucking lot little and the whole movie theatre looks at you like you're crazy for having emotions and whenever kids from your school are there, you get popcorn thrown at you and all sorts of mysterious things. But you really don't care if it's just Sollux with you. You kind of, actually really like watching things with him because he doesn't mind when you get all emotional and start gross sobbing. He also lets you hug it out afterwards. However, you can't do that at a movie theatre because how dare anybody show affection for a friend in public.

"Like Usual." He sounds slightly disappointed or maybe exhausted.

"What's that supposed to mean?" You sneer and cross your arms.

"It just bothers me that you're so concerned about other people's opinions about you." He shrugs and shakes his head.

"I don't give a fuck about their opinions! I just prefer to have privacy is all." You look at the window to your side. He smirks and nudges you with an elbow.

"Oh~ so you like to be alone with me?" He chuckles and you swat his elbow away.

"Shut the fuck up Captor! Jeez, you're such a narcissist… and yeah. Okay? So don't make me regret that." You blush and look down angrily, twiddling with your thumbs. Sometimes you feel like you take advantage of Sollux too much… Like you don't actually know how much he means to you. So you pay him back by showing him your emotions that nobody, besides him and partially Gamzee, has seen honestly in about five years.

You see him smile through the rear view mirror, stimulating an instant unnoticed smile from yourself.

"Eheheh, love you too KK" He smirks.

"Shut up, you ass" You say more gently than anything. Here comes that feeling again and WOW did it boost dramatically when he said he loves you. Sollux has said that before though (Totally in a platonic, bro way of course). Why is that making you feel so strange right now? He always jests like that…Right?

A few minutes pass and you arrive at Sollux's house. It's a decent size. His mom and dad greet you like they would a son. After all, you do come here often. It's an every weekend thing at the very least. His mom hugs you and his dad simply waves and says 'hello' from his lounging position on the couch. His mom is short, Asian and pudgy and his dad on the other hand is tall and decently toned. Overall, they are very benevolent and treat you like a son, especially his mom. Her English is a bit broken, but she's very nice and welcomes you. His dad is okay, just not very sociable. After saying hey, you're led up the stairs to Sollux's room. You walk in and shut the door behind you.

You and he argue on what kind of movie to watch for a good five minutes. Of course, you want to watch a romcom while he wants to watch some slasher film. You FINALLY decide on the movie Brave since you both agree in the end that you should pick a movie outside of both of your interests to make it fair. Sollux leaves while you order movie and set it up, returning with a bowl of popcorn and some Faygo.

"Do you have any diet?" You question and take the faygo he hands you. Cherry Cola. The one he has is Lemon Lime. He eyes you like you're insane and looks you up and down.

"Why the fuck do you always want diet? You're not fat." You give him another half-hearted glare.

"I just fucking like diet more. Jeez. Not everything I do is from self-consciousness, Sollux." He abruptly pulls you by your turtle neck and forces you to sit on his bed. "The last thing you need is diet. Now just sit the fuck down." You mumble something along the lines of 'maybe I wanted to sit on the floor' and he just chuckles. You reposition yourself back against the wall that's beside his bed, knees pulled up to your chest with your arms folded around them.

Some amount of time later you are in the middle of watching Brave. The film is absolutely almost intolerable. That's to say, it's not that it's bad, the plot is amazing and it's a marvelous story and the graphics are fantastic. But damn how did you manage to pick a film like this? The trailer you saw was definitely misleading. Leave it to you to NOT read what it's about and find out midway through it that it's about _mother-child_ love. This was an awful movie to choose. You're going to die. Your eyes water and . . . Just . . . Ohmygod. . .

You choke back any tears threatening to fall past your eyes but Sollux can clearly see that you're ready to bawl. He probably would think you're just crying because of the movie since he's probably grown accustomed to you crying during movies. You sit down and try to relax but you can't and you can feel Sollux's eyes watching you and you really hope he doesn't see through your façade. You stand up brusquely. Sollux pauses the movie and grabs at your hand to yank you back down onto his bed.

"Hey what's up? You okay?" you hide your face and blink hard as to keep any tears from toppling over your eyelids.

"Jeez, I'm fine. Clingy much? I have to use the bathroom." He stares at you skeptically.

"You went before the movie and you haven't even drunk your Faygo." He says bluntly.

"Fuck off, jeez, you are really obsessive Sol." He sighs before responding with a smirk.

"You only wish I'd obsess over you." He teases, a smirk forming on his face.

"Whatever." Wow-if you didn't sound completely pathetic just then. If he didn't know you were upset he does now. He's still eyeing you suspiciously. You shrug it off and walk to his restroom (Which is attached to his room) trying your hardest to hide your slight limp.

**HEY HEY, BE THE ONE IN LOVE WITH KARKAT!**

What? No you're not _in love _with him… Well okay, yes, maybe you are. But still, no.

**Okay? Wow, rude, be Karkat?**

Ew no you're in the bathroom. Jeez, privacy? Stalker.

**C'mon seriously, be Sollux.**

Fine.

You are Sollux Captor and you'll admit that the way you feel towards Karkat far past exceeds friendly. You also think he's flat out adorable, especially when he smiles, on the rare occasion that he does. And his laugh, oh lord, when he laughs, though he seldom ever does, you feel like you could die with no regrets. You remember the first time you'd made him laugh; He was crying about something a friend did and you decided that he needed a smile on his face. So of course, you tickled him. The moment a laugh escaped his lips your stomach fluttered and you felt your heart skip several beats and you went completely dumb, like a dear in headlights. That happened a few months after you met him and you're pretty sure that's when you decided that your feelings for him ran a bit deeper than in an average friendship.

You also won't lie about occasionally fantasizing pinning him to your bed and walls and making him squirm beneath you. You can picture frisking things up with him on just about every innocent piece of furniture and surface area in your house.

Enough talking about that stuff, though.

Something is wrong with Karkat. You know there is. What better way to find out what's bothering him than to snoop? You know you won't find anything useful in his backpack however, lucky for you, he has left his phone indiscreetly on your bed. You figure you'll scroll through his texts since you know getting it out of him yourself will be like beating at a steel piñata and by the end of it he'll be angry as a result of you 'assuming things'.

You find that he's really not a texter. He only texts you and some other guy named Gamzee (Who's habit you have been informed of.) He appears to text him a lot though. You take it upon yourself to look through the messages and what you read is a bit unsettling.

His dad is _still_ being abusive. Of course, he's told you about his dad on more than one occasion and unfortunately, you've seen the evidence. There was a time or two when he came to you _nearly_ in tears to **_ask _**if he could stay with you for some time. He knows he doesn't even have to ask, for crying out loud your parents spoil him more than they spoil you. You proceed to look through his text and what you observe takes a moment or two to sink in.

Karkat…Is… Hurting himself? _Again?_ No no no, he would tell you right? He would go to you if something was _that_ wrong right? You have known about his cutting habits. You've caught glimpses of scars etched on his wrists. You even spoke about them to him. But he swore that he hadn't thought of touching a razor for some time. Granted, they were faded and so you figured they were old and that it was the past. You're pretty sure you know the main reason behind his cutting.

His mom died about a year before you met him. That's when his dad started drinking and then they moved to the house he's in now, in the ugliest part of town since they couldn't afford their old house anymore. His neighborhood happens to border between middle class- where you live, and what's deemed to be high maintenance or, the classier people. Unfortunately, all three classes are jammed into the same school and unfortunately mix like hydrogen peroxide and acetone.

So, in short, on top of losing him mom, he was forced to move and go to a decent school with crappy students. You're lucky enough to be homeschooled.

You hear the bathroom doorknob rattle and place his phone where it was before you putting distance between you and it and acting innocently. He walks back over to your bed and sits down, legs dangling off the side. You'd call him short but your bed is excessively tall. You find it really cute, how short he is actually, of course that's not to say he's some measly little thing, and in fact, he's quite the opposite. Karkat is fairly toned- not dramatically, but he can definitely put up a fight. You know he deserves the A he has in gym.

"Wanna finish watching this?" He questions. You shake your head. You know he was crying, you can tell. His eyes are red and just barely glossy and you can only just still see that pink tint on his cheeks. You're about to have a major feelings jam.

"Nahh. How 'bout we just talk." He swings his head up and looks at you matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, speaking of which, what do you have planned for tomorrow?" He looks up at you and fidgets with his thumbs. You do have something planned, but that's a surprise.

"Not important. Right now, we need to talk." He looks down at his thumbs, twiddling, before responding.

"We're already talking." He says annoyed, averting his gaze.

You decide that now is a good time to pull the assuming asshole card.

"Why did you cry KK?" You see his eyes dilate and shoulders jerk a bit. He's tentative to respond.

"I wasn't- I wasn't fucking crying dipshit." He snarls, refusing to look at you.

"Bullshit Karkat I can tell-"He cuts you off.

"You know, it's NONE of your fucking concern, Sollux!" He snaps. You stare and you know you're probably letting too much anger show.

"None of my concern? None? You're going to have to explain your reasoning for that or- You know Karkat? You're right. Because it's not like I've been your friend for a little over four years now and it's not like you don't come to my house often enough to live here. I'm kind of getting the feeling that you don't trust me." Your voice is clear and mixed with anger and concern and even though your lisp has gotten ten times better in comparison to your childhood, it's not even perceptible in serious topic like this one.

You see him avert his eyes from yours once more. This time he hides his whole face from your gaze, looking down so that his snowy hair shields your view. He stands to abscond, but you grab his hand and jerk him onto the bed once more, sternly gripping one of his shoulders so that he's facing you. His features appear angry but you know it's a weak cover up. His eyes are red, tears build on the rim of his eyes and threaten to topple over his eyelids, while his cheeks are flushed red against his pail skin. You can tell he's about to bawl like a child. He struggles to release his hand from yours "Let me the fuck go! This is stupid-" He's cut off by your tight grip and you yank his sleeves up and hold his wrists upward to expose the parallel slits and scars. They occupy the skin right below his palm, all the way to the midsection of his arm. You see the shock on his face and he tries to pull away, but you have his arm locked in your palm with much struggle.

"Karkat!" You snap through clenching teeth. "_This _is NOT stupid. You going through pain and hurting yourself is NOT stupid!" You hiss.

His bottom lip is trembling and he bites down on it, looking down. He puts up a pathetic fight to free himself, twisting his arm weakly with no effort. You loosen your grip and pull him into a hug. He strains to get away, hands pushing against your shoulders, but it's weak. You pull him in tighter and embrace him, wrapping your arms around him. "Fuck you!" He chokes out faintly, and you can tell he's crying now. He ceases to push against you and practically melts into your arms, tucking his face down onto your chest and his hands squeezing your shoulders. He tucks his legs up off the side of the bed and curls them up behind him. You hear him hiccup occasionally. You hug him a bit tighter before gently speaking. "Damn it KK… Just tell me… please… Stop leaving me in the dark like this and tell me what's wrong." He tightens his grip on your shoulders.

"I-I just, I c-can't." He stammers out.

"Why not? How do you know I can't help until you just trust me?" You question. He lets out a heavy frustrated groan.

"Fuck Sollux, I trust you, I-I do, but, if I start now you're not going to hear the end of it. It's not worth it" You shrug.

"I think it's worth it. It's not healthy to bundle things up inside. You need to talk to someone. I want to be that someone." He pulls away from your chest and looks at you.

"I don't even know where to begin…" You meet his gaze before suggesting,

"We can start with why you were crying, the real reason." He sighs in defeat.

"It's my mom. . ." He speaks surprisingly soft while he pushes himself away from your chest.

"I need more to work with here, KK." You see him swallow hard and his eyes are focused on his twiddling thumbs.

"Damn it, I don't know! It just- It just reminded me of her- the movie." He shakes his head annoyed with himself "Fuck, I'm sorry Sol, I didn't know it was going to have a major mother role I wouldn't have bought it if-" You cut him off.

"KK I don't give a shit about the movie. Back to what you were saying."

"Basically…that's it" He gives you a look begging you stop this and you return it with that of skepticism. Your hands are making circular motions to indicate that he continue and he looks away. He remains quiet until you pipe up again, trying to sound as sincere and serious as you can.

"KK, you can tell me. I'm here for that reason. I'm your friend and I care about you." He looks down further hiding his face but you can see a few tears fall onto his legs. You can see his back jitter with his sobs and hiccups but it's like they're muted. It takes all of your restraint to not embrace him in your arms, to secure him, let him know he's safe with you.

"I miss everything and how it used to be, I miss her." He brings his hands to his eyes, catching his tears "I miss her hugs, her kisses, her smile, I miss how she made everything seem so much better than it was, I miss how she'd come into my room at night and tuck me in and I miss how she always kept my dad in check an-and how she would tell me that she loved my hair and eyes and that I was the angel she almost lost and…a-and-I wish she did lose me because at least then she'd still be here and alive and happy a-and-and" He's sobbing and hiccupping rampantly now and you're embracing your arms around his waist without thought and he doesn't hesitate in hugging you back, tucking his face into the crook of your neck. You feel his warm, wet tears against your skin and you hold him firm and tight against you. "And it's my fault Sollux… It's my entire fault she's gone. If I wasn't so selfish-So needy, she'd be here…She'd be okay" It's barely a whisper, but you can hear it almost too clearly. You cut him off.

"Don't say that KK. You shouldn't blame yourself for something like that. Not ever." He hugs you tighter, still bawling.

You lay yourself and him on your bed, still hugging him close. You free one of your arms to allow it to gently caress his cheek and comb your fingers gently through his messy hair.

It's been about thirty minutes since his little breakdown. His hiccuping and crying has decreased decently. He's ready to pass out, as are you. You let him go for a moment so you can slip off your shoes and t-shirt so that you're wearing your undershirt. You then mend to taking off his shoes. You realize that when you slip off his left shoe he jerks his foot barely and you're just capable of hearing him inhale sharply. His socks dip below his ankle, so you can see a light bruising around it. You figure he's had enough for tonight so you won't mention it. You turn off the light and return to your spot next to him.

You continue your stroking of his face and hair. He's calmed down quite a bit. There are only occasional sniffles and hiccups. He's not asleep yet; his eyes are ever so slightly peeping open. There's a question that you've been meaning to ask him. You hesitate. "KK?" He looks up at you.

"Why did your mom call you the angel she almost lost?" He pauses and you can see his eyes wondering around the room, searching for the right words until he meets your eyes again.

"I uh…Mama- My mom, she…She had three pregnancies before me. Each of them was unsuccessful. She was going to give up but then I came along. I nearly died. She told me I wasn't breathing and then I-I just all of the sudden started breathing…She said the nurses where baffled about it. She told me that it was because I was her special baby. Her Miracle sent from _heaven_ and that was the reason for my hair and eyes- she always told me she loved it…"

"That's why you don't want to dye your hair and get contacts... isn't it?

He smiles painfully and nods. You hold out a hand to lightly pat his cheek.

"She isn't the only one you know." He looks at you confused. You shuffle his hair and chuckle. "Good night KK." He's quiet for a moment before responding.

"G'night fuckass." The insult is actually endearing and you think you see a sincere smile creep onto his face as he turns the other way.

* * *

**I love Eridan. He is my Baby.**

**Also, I don't even know if Divat's is a real magazine I just know it means fashion in Italian- or at least according to GoogleTranslate it does, although I'm certain we all know just how reliable GoogleTranslate is. :I**

******Anyways, the next chapter will be up shortly, sometime next week at the latest. Thanks for reading!**


	4. Chapter 4

**I'm apologizing to all of you who are actually reading this because this came in a lot later than it should have! I'm sorry to the utmost of sorriness! I would have added more, but I've felt terrible lately and blehhh. I'm sorry y'all ; - ; **

**I'm feeling a little better now though, so there's a plus.**

**(oh by the way, character death, major character death.)**

**OOOOOHMYGOD I'm so sorry you guys I accidentally excluded the intro of this chapter! If you already read it, read it again because I put the intro up but I'm also going to put a notice in the next chapter about my mistake! Sorry y'all!**

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Lanky arms fall from your chest as you swing around to find the owner of the appendages but they've vanished and instead of finding Sollux behind you, you're observing… a train? You look down and the couch you'd been sitting on prior to now has turned to that of a train seat. You turn back around, sitting in the seat to find that you've been placed in a train. It's not just any train though. This is where _it _happened. This was only the beginning of the spiraling downfall in your life.

You look up and see exactly what you imagine seeing, the train that was said to be of decent condition but your head can't help but picture it as anything but a dark, rust and run down thing. Everybody's faces are shadows and featureless, except one: your mom. You can't see her face though and you're slightly relieved at that because you don't think you could handle it if you did.

You want to scream and tell her to leave but the air is stuck in your throat and all you can do is watch this happen for the millionth time. You can hear your breath and heartbeat and your throat burns for you to scream but you can't get anything out. You feel tied down but nothings holding you and the air is burning your eyes because you can't close them and it feels like your being forced to look.

When _he _shows up, he demands that your mother give him money so she takes out her wallet and hands it to him. He pulls out the money and counts mom insists that that's all she has and that he can have anything else on her but he rejects and snatches her purse, throwing things out of it as the other passengers sit idly by, not even glancing in their direction. He throws a tiny black parcel out of the bag and it skitters across the floor to land just in front of your foot. It tilts, resulting in the lid falling off and a necklace tumbling out. It's the necklace she was going to give you for your birthday.

The man carries on his yelling and you know it's almost here. He's counting down and it feels like a million pounds are resting on your chest, you can't breathe, you don't think you've been breathing so your lungs burn and your eyes feel like they're going to burst. You can't look away and you can feel tears on the edges of your eyes and it happens.

Time goes painfully slow and the guns lowered to her chest and you still can't see her face. The man pulls the trigger back and you're stuck between wanting to run and hide forever and wanting to do _something _or anything! The invisible force enveloping you lifts and you scream out for her but it's too late. The bullet produces a blast of sound through the air and when you can finally shut your eyes, you're swinging up out of Sollux's bed screaming.

**Be the supposed chef.**

Ah shit. You should have fucking measured the baking powder before you poured it, but nope, you had to be cocky with you chef skills and estimate. Whatever, these pancakes are going to be super fucking fluffy and Karkat's plump ass can deal with it. Really, it's uncalled for how difficult it is for you to make a simple batch of pancakes. Your parents _own _a restaurant for Christ's sake! You even help them cook often! God forbid though, you try to make pancakes and everything hits the ceiling.

Seriously, you did NOT force yourself to get up early for this shit. You don't even really like pancakes, however, a specific albino currently balled up in your bed happens to love them and frankly, it'd be nice to have his morning be somewhat decent. Coming to your house seems like a vacation all on its own, since his school life and home leave him in a bad state. Yeah, the least you can do is treat him to a pleasant breakfast and YOU'RE GOING TO FUCKING BURN THAT PANCAKE JESUS CHRIST- ah shit, too late. Note to self: Pancakes are actually Satan patties. Good thing you made plenty of batter.

You grab the bowl containing the batter poor it into the pan and poke at it with the spatula. You are going to watch this pancake like a hawk watches its prey. You lean to look over at the pancake recipe your mom made in a recipe book she put together with your dad.

You nearly throw the pan, pancake and all when a sudden scream shoots through the house. Next thing you know, all things that exist don't matter anymore, you abandon the stove and pancake and dash to your room. Never mind the fact that it was Karkat's scream, but also that it sounded terrified! You call out his name as you approach the room, marching your way up the stairs and you hope it was a roach or spider or something equally as not bad. Please be a roach or spider! Please be nothing bad!

You prepare yourself for the vilest of situations, but there's just Karkat sitting in your bed, hunched over, his face placed in his palms and he looks like he's panting.

You tread over to the bed and sit down.

"KK?" You call in a more than worried tone, placing a hand on his shoulder. He curls down his fingers so reveal his eyes and takes a heavy breath.

"I'm fine…Just a bad dream." He tries to reassure you but you know it's worse than 'just a bad dream'.

"You want to talk about it?" He looks as though he considers it for a moment but ends up shaking his head.

"No, it's nothing you don't already know about." He breathes in deeply again and you nod. It was probably the same nightmare he's been having for a while. It's odd though, he doesn't normally have nightmares when he's at your house.

His face twists into confusion and you return the look.

"What?" You inquire and he sniffs the air.

"What's that smell?" Smell? What smell-Oh shit… OH FUCKING HELL NO YOU ARE NOT BURNING ANOTHER GOD DAMN PANCAKE!

You hear him call for you as you sprint out of the room, marching down the stairs, barely realizing that he's following behind you. You can smell the pancake and JESUS WHY CAN'T YOU JUST MAKE A SIMPLE BATCH OF PANCAKES?

You turn off the stove, picking up the pan to observe the pancake inside. Burnt to a crisp. You groan and hunch over. Karkat comes up beside you and you observe him as he dips his finger into the batter and licks it off his finger, then raising his brows and you're not sure if that's good or bad.

"Uhh… So?" You inquire and he glances over at you, dipping a different finger in and wow that's really cute and he should stop.

"The batter's actually, really fucking good." You throw a mini party in your head for a moment, prior to taking the bowl away from him before he can dip another finger in, resulting in a scowl directed at you.

"I appreciate the fact that you're not double dipping, but this has raw eggs in it and you can't get sick because I have plans."

"Plans? What pl-" You grab his shoulders and push him over to the table, forcing him to sit in one of the chairs.

"Shut up and sit down so I can make you food." You demand and he's in the midst of trying to form something to comeback before you interrupt him.

"Ah." You hold a finger in his face, one hand still placed on his shoulder. "Shut. Up. Sit. I'm making you food and it's going to be bitching and you're going to love it."

He grunts before mumbling.

"Turn down the god damn stove so they don't burn." You chuckle and though you're the chef here, taking some friendly advice couldn't hurt anyone.

**Be the pancake.**

Well, my child, Let me tell you my story. Oh wait there is no fucking story because that fuck can't fucking cook so any story ended the moment you hit the pan. You didn't ask for this. This wasn't the purpose you wanted to serve. You wanted _to be _served. Life is tough and now, you must go to the dark elastic box of waste. You must go to your people.

_Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, you're on your way down to the royal dump. _(The pancake was thrown out, in short: This was the major character death. Not joking, this is it, I'm sorry if anyone cried)

**That was a waste of time. Anyway uh, be Karkat…**

First, a nightmare, then you woke up gasping for air and with your throat and lungs feeling like they're on fire. Those are all downsides to this morning. Pancakes though… _Pancakes._ Pancakes are fluffy heaven condensed into circles. Pancakes are a major upside to this. You're more than thankful because another downside was that you were hungry. Sollux, for whatever reason, made you breakfast, which he hardly ever often commits to.

Most of the time Sollux wakes up much later than you and you usually beat him to a bowl of cereal or a breakfast that his mom prepares. If he could, he'd sleep the whole day away. A lot of the time you have to use force to get him up or threaten to tinker his computer, earning you an attitude for the rest of the morning but he never holds grudges, though he had more than plenty of opportunities to.

Anyway, point is, Sollux rarely wakes up before you, never mind he's cooking you food. It's a bit out of the norm and slightly unnerving but, hey, you're not complaining. You're thankful and you have to thank him later.

You examine the house and come to the conclusion that his parents aren't around. You're pretty sure they're not asleep either because, unlike Sollux, they're actually early risers. Not to mention that it's the weekend and they're usually up cooking or watching T.V. or something.

"Hey Sollux?" He lightly nods and hums a questioning sound.

"Where are your parents? Isn't the restaurant run by workers on weekends." He nods, but makes a confused face that your pretty sure is directed at you and not the pancake he's scrutinizing.

"Well, yeah, but didn't I tell you they were going to be out for about a week?" You do recall him telling you about it now that you think about it, though the memory is vague.

"Uh, sorta… Why?" He singlehandedly flips the pancake up in the air with the pan because he just has to show off his super cool chef skills. He rummages through cabinets to receive a plate and places it on the counter before sliding the pancake onto it by tilting the pan as it slides over the edge and onto the plate.

"They're going on some cruise as chefs." He answers. Watching him cook is making you hungry and your mouth water.

"Huh… What about the restaurant? Is it going to be closed or…?" He pours more batter, this time managing to squeeze two pancakes onto the pan.

"Nah, my parents are just going to have the same people that run it on the weekends stay in charge for the next week. I just have to check in every now and then." You nod, eyes glued to the pancakes.

"Uhuh… Just as break starts too. That sucks." You actually nearly forgot that this week started your short break. You don't know how it slipped your mind, seeing as how your birthday is in a week or, on July 7th. You actually regret recalling the day and wish you had just forgotten.

You bring your eyes up to meet Sollux's, only to find him giving you a looked that's crossed between interrogative and discerning, which for one reason or another, irks you so you glare back at him.

"What?" You growl and he just raises a brow before walking over to you with a glass of water and a plate of three beautifully magnificent, fluffy pancakes and you forget completely that you were going to glare him down when they're places before you. He sits across from you, his plate containing two pancakes. Before you can think, your hands are reaching for your fork and knife and you're digging in and oh your god Sollux is magnificent.

"Sollux, you are a beautiful and bravura and beyond creature." You force out, shoving loads of pancake into your mouth. Sollux laughs a little harder than you intended him to, so you swallow down what's in your mouth to speak and he's still laughing. "Uh? C'mon I know I'm not _that _funny." You inquire and he stifles his laughter, wiping a tear form under his eye.

"Eheheh, it's nothing KK, it's just," He chuckles barely a gain. "The thing you do when you eat, you stuff your cheeks like a squirrel." He laughs again and you blush and grimace at him.

"Chipmunks stuff their cheeks you idiot… not squirrels." You mumble as you take another bite.

"Eheh, it's adorable." He continues to laugh so you flip him off and proceed to eating your pancakes in a more human-like and not chipmunk-like manner whatsoever.

When you pop the last piece of pancake into your mouth, you find that Sollux has only eaten one whole pancake and barely half of his other one and you wonder if you were eating too fast and gross or if he's seriously full, in which case you'd feel like a pig for inhaling your food in less than five minutes.  
"Is that seriously all you're going to eat?" You ask as he pokes the remaining pancake with a fork.

"Why? You want it?" He looks up at you with a teasing smirk as he wavers his fork in front of your face with a piece of pancake on it and you blush and swat it away from your face.

"NO! I was only asking because we kind of had popcorn for dinner last night and neither of us really ate it." You deadpan. Sollux chuckles before making a slightly disgusted face at his pancake.

"Eh, yeah but, I don't really want any pancakes." You make a face at him, burrowing your brows.

"Then why'd you make them?" You snare. He gives you a smile as he gets up to collect both of your plates and takes them to the sink.

"You like pancakes though, right?" He faces away from you to scrape off the remaining pancake and rinse the dishes off.

"Well, yeah no duh." He nods, placing the dishes in the dishwasher and turning back around to lean back against the counter while sending you smile that you can't seem to look away from until he takes off to his room with a just barely audible chuckle. You sit for a moment while you piece together the ridiculous puzzle that Sollux just threw at you, though it doesn't take you long. The jerk didn't _have _to make you pancakes, although that doesn't stop the smile from spreading across your face as you trudge up the stairs behind him.

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**I'm sorry if I actually scared anyone with the "character death". It was pretty intense. **

**Alright well, I promise I will try to get the next one up sooner than this one! I am committed to this and I am feeling better~**

**... Does anyone even read these? **


	5. Chapter 5

Sorry y'all! For whatever reason, my internet won't work and it took forever to even load Fanfiction's home page alone.

This isn't my internet though, so I need to get off of it soon. I'm mooching off my neighbor's internet.

I've had plenty of time to rewrite the story though, so the next chapter is ready to be uploaded as soon as I find better internet.

Oh and btw, if you read the last chapter, I forgot to include the introduction to it so you may want to read it again and make sure you read it with the intro!

I'm a mess.

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"Hey, KK?" he calls to you from his room.

"Yeah?" you respond, mounting the stairs to his room.

"You didn't have anything in particular in mind for today, right?" You walk into his room and isn't he mister shameless-I'm-going-to-strip-and-get-dressed-right -in-front-of-you. He's always been like this though; not really caring what people think of his thin self. He's never gone as far as taking off his boxers. You, on the other hand, prefer to change in private.

"Nope." You speak in a lukewarm manner and sigh. You like hanging out with Sollux, you really do. But instead of walking around, going to some free park or something, you two have done absolutely nothing for the past… however long it's been. It feels like it's been ages although it's probably only been a month or so.

"Good."

You raise a brow at him and mentally curse at yourself for wanting to run your eyes down his slender frame. You can't really come to terms with yourself as to why you always stare at him when he's half naked. He is certainly skinny, but not gross skinny. When he's not looking, you always find your eyes scanning his back on their own avail. You shake those thoughts though.

"Care to explain why doing nothing for the billionth time is 'good'?" you snare at him as he slips on a pair of regular, faded, blue skinny jeans.

"Because, moron, I actually have something in mind." He deadpans and rummages through his dresser for a shirt, you presume, since he is still shirtless.

You growl at his response and cross your arms and glare at his back.

"Well excuse me for not being a fucking mind reader and being unaware that you've made plans without me being aware." He just laughs at this and that makes the urge to throw something at him ridiculously strong.

"It's not a surprise if I tell you, KK." You can practically hear him grinning.

"Wait. What? What do you mean?" you inquire. He tugs a striped red and black v-neck over his head and moves to his closet.

"I stress the term surprise." He retrieves a black sleeveless hoodie from his closet and pulls it on.

"Seriously? Can you privilege me with telling me where it's located at least?" You turn to him and the two of you make eye contact.

"I can tell you that it's pretty far away, so I want to be ready to go. So get ready." He playfully smacks the side of your head, thus, you swat at his hand.

You roll your eyes, although you're thankful to be actually leaving and far from here at that. The further you are from here, the lower the odds are of you running into someone from this area.

"That's all I get? That's the only description you're giving me?" He thinks for a moment before responding.

"It starts at six- and go get dressed!" He walks over to your bag and throws it in the bathroom, aware that you're going to change in there. A glare is sent in his direction as you trudge over to his restroom.

Shutting the bathroom door, you hear a chuckle come from Sollux, earning a mumble for him to fuck off but he just responds with the I-love-you-too thing.

Delving through your backpack, you pull out your toothbrush and comb and set to taking care of your hygiene before you get dressed. After brushing your teeth and combing your impossible-to-tame hair, you set to hunting for an outfit in the jungle of sweaters you have in your bag.

All the sweaters in your bag generally look the same so you just grab any old one and slip it on. It's baggy, like all the others, and grey with red linen. You find a pair of black skinny jeans and pull those on too. Of course the skinny jeans wrinkle up around your ankles, since everything is made for giants nowadays, so you have to fold them up at the bottom.

You briefly check yourself in the mirror, twisting to see the back. Satisfied that you look decent, you walk out of the restroom and are almost immediately greeted by two eyes scrutinizing your outfit. "What the fuck are you staring at?" you snarl, doing your signature sassy pose- crossing your arms and jutting your hip out. Wait what? Your pose is most definitely fierce-as-hell and not sassy whatsoever.

"KK, there is absolutely no fucking way that you're wearing a sweater. It's hot as balls out." He turns on a heal and heads to his closet.

"I'll wear whatever the hell I please, fuck you very much." You defend.

"Yeah, well, you're not going to be so pleased with it when you're sweating up a storm." he comebacks. You're surprised when he pulls out a red V-neck that might actually fit you. All his shirts are like pre-bippity-boppity-boo Cinderella dresses on you.

You still don't have intentions on wearing it though.

"I can't promise that it'll be a perfect fit but, I wore it when I was fourteen so it should be alright." He holds it out to you.

"I'm not going to wear your hand-me-downs assho-" He's hugging you… why is he hugging you? You hesitantly hug him back but the next thing you know, you're hoodie is just about being ripped off you and the v-neck is shoved over your head.

You shake your hair back into place and stare daggers at him. "

What the literal fuck, Captor!" You grimace. He smiles and god DAMN IT why can't you stay mad at him.

"I don't see why you don't want to wear it. You've got nothing to be ashamed of." A toothy grin takes over his face as he ghost a finger along your collarbone, imposing you to fucking squeak, squeak and leap backwards, not short of shooting him another glare and more than likely a small blush.

"I'm not ashamed! Asshole! I just," Okay, that's only partially not true. You certainly feel exposed but you could cope with it. In candid, the fabric is actually really nice against your skin. You could handle exposing a little more skin than you usually do. Those scars though; you don't want anyone to see them let alone the fact that you don't even like seeing them. Looking down at your wrists, Sollux seeming to catch on and his grin fades.

"KK, I'm pretty sure nobody will see them." he soothes, but… you just hate seeing them; especially when you're with Sollux. Sollux makes you forget about all the fucked up junk in your life and when you see them, you remember. On top of that, you're certain that Sollux dislikes them just as much as you, if not, even more.

"I don't want to see them either, though." You mumble, fidgeting your hands and when a finger brushes against the cuts, you're whole arm nearly jerks because wow what the fuck why do they hurt so much?

Sollux looks concerned as he asks to look at your wrist and asking 'why' earns you an aggravated expression and he snatches at your wrist anyway, eliciting a small pained noise from you.

"What the literal fuck Sollux! I don't know if you've noticed, but they kind of sting!" He rolls his eyes.

"Well gee, KK, I wonder why." Before you can respond he drags you off to his bathroom.

"What the fuck is your deal and why are we in the bathroom?" He starts digging around through cabinets and curses when he can't find what he's looking for. He nudges you away from the sink to turn on the faucet and adjust the temperature.

"Put your wrist under the faucet and keep it there, I'll be back." You tug the back of his shirt before he can leave and ask why.

"KK, I swear, you are such an oblivious idiot sometimes. They sting so much because they're infected." He turns and leaves before you can respond, muttering about needing to get something.

You soak the infected wrist under the hot water. Well. You feel like an asshole now. God, you're such a lame friend. He was only trying to help you and you gave him an attitude. That's not to say he didn't return the attitude, though.

Some amount of time later, Sollux returns with a small bowl of what looks like water and a clear round container of something transparent. The anger he had earlier has settled down for the most part, but you still feel bad.

Turning off the water, he grabs at your hand and turns your wrist up, grabbing a cloth and dipping it into the cup of whatever liquid it contains. He tells you to sit on the counter, so you do. He applies the now wet cloth to your wrist and holy fuck that did absolutely nothing to ease the pain. You jerk your wrist but let it stay in his hand.

"What the fuck is that shit? That did absolutely nothing to make it hurt less." To your surprise, the geek chuckles.

"It's hot water mixed with salt, so yeah, it'll probably sting a little."

"Yeah, thanks for warning me in advance." You growl.

"No problem." He sniggers, applying the cloth again, gently stroking your wrist.

After he's applied the saltwater, he uses the opposite end of the rag to pat your wrist dry. The container holding the translucent substance is opened and he then rubs some of that onto your wrist.

It doesn't surprise you that he knows how to do this stuff. His parents are old fashioned when it comes to medicines and use a lot of home remedies, with the exception of Sollux's and Mituna's medications, and it's no shock that he'd end up learning them somewhere along the lines.

**Finish patching Karkat up.**

"Okay," You breathe. "That'll do for now. I'll put a bandage on it when we leave. But if it doesn't get better, I don't care how many times you tell me no, I will drag you to the doctor's to go get it checked." He opens his mouth to reject, but you place a hand over it. "I said, I don't care how many times you tell me no." He rolls his eyes and pushes your hand away.

"So, we done here?" He flips his wrist around and back to examine it.

"Yeah… But KK," He looks down at you, one of the only times he will ever look down on you, since he's sitting on the counter. You walk over to stand in front of him and look into his eyes. You've always thought his eyes were the most inexplicable, gorgeous things.

"What?" He burrows his brows.

"Promise me that this won't happen again and by this I mean you hurting yourself." You swear to baby Jesus that you will lock him in your house and treat him like the fucking angel he is and you'd make him realize that he's actually cared about.

He looks at the floor like it's the most fascinating thing until you say his whole name, making his head snap up. Using full names is serious shit for you. If you use someone's full name, you mean business.

"… I meant it when I said I hadn't touched a razor in months, it's just…sometimes-well- I mean, I already don't have intentions on doing it again, but that's how I felt last time and then.." He makes a frustrated noise, trying to figure out what to say. "I don't think I will anymore or that I even want to but, I can try." He efforts and the look on his face tells you he means it.

A sigh falls past your lips as you wrap your arms around his back. It's one of those rare moments where he doesn't hesitate in returning the embrace, leaning his head on your shoulder.

"If you can't promise me that, can you, at least, promise me that you'll tell me what's wrong before you do anything. Please Karkat? At least let me try to help." You coax.

"I promise." His breath ghosts over the skin of your neck when he lets out a sigh.

Everything goes quiet and time stops being a thing as you two hug it out in the bathroom before you speak again.

"KK?" a frail noise is his response. "Sorry for being a bitch earlier. I know it's not really an excuse, but I was just worried. This situation- your whole situation in general just concerns me." You breathe heavily into his hair. "You mean so much to me, Karkat." You wait for him to respond but you get nothing and oh god what if you just freaked him out? "Karkat?... oh come on don't start pretending you don't hear me, I'm spilling my fucking emotions out to you, how often do I even talk emotions with anyone?" You pull away to look at him and-oh… well then.

He fell asleep on you. You can't refrain from letting out a chuckle as you gently pick him up. You're thankful that he's short because otherwise, you probably wouldn't be this at ease holding him.

You bring him over to your bed where you try to lay him down as smoothly as possible. That doesn't work though. You trip, landing over him on the bed. You look down at him, expecting to get punched in the face, but he's still out like a light.

Karkat gets annoyed at how often he falls asleep when he's at your house. It really doesn't bother you in the slightest. He can't really sleep at his own house because he's uncomfortable there and there's negative energy and all that feng shui. So honestly, it makes you happy whenever he sleeps effortlessly at your house because it reminds you that he actually does feel at ease being with you. That helps you hope that maybe you could tell him how you feel one day.

Examining his face, you take in how the darkness below his eyes has faded some and it's hardly really been a day and a half. You also observe just about the rest of his face, like how long his eyelashes are, though you can't tell because of their color. His eyebrows are in a permanent scowl and most people would probably think he's angry all the time, but you can easily tell the difference between his regular face and his legit anger. You think his freckles are by far the cutest feature on him. They're mainly prominent over the bridge of his nose, on and around his cheeks, vanishing most around his temples, forehead and chin. Then, there's his hair. It isn't necessarily white, but more like an extremely platinum blonde.

You're brought back to reality when said albino stirs, faintly speaking your name and you hastily crawl off of him. "Shit, Karkat, I'm sorry, it's not what it looks like I swear-" He's still asleep… You swear you heard him, though- oh wait you did. He murmurs your name again and you grin because he's dreaming about you.

**Karkat: Dream**

Everything went black when the bullet took to the air. You heard the squeaking of breaks and then, you were being thrown forward.

When your eyes open up again, the train floor is replaced with hardwood.

It doesn't take you very long to realize that this is the living area of your old house. It's abundant in space compared to where you're currently living. But it's also in a more secluded area.

The house is set up exactly how you remember it before everything happened, only different in a sense that everything looks like it's been in its place for ages. A blanket of dust is draped over everything. The lights are out and the windows are open, sending a chilling breeze through the murky space.

Something doesn't feel the way it used to. Granted, that something could be the fact that the place appears oddly run down, but something in you tells you that that's not it.

Turn around

You're looking at the long hall, at the very end, being the front door, and in the hallway about halfway down, is a shadowy figure. From what you can tell it's a women's figure. You squint, trying to figure out who it is. You walk forward, a light whisper echoing through the house, speaking your name. You're running now- no- you're sprinting because now you're certain, that is your mom.

The hallway stretches as you run like in one of those haunted house movies. You're almost to the point of being breathless and yet it seems as though you've made no progress at all.

When you're finally right there, she's walking out the door in less than a second, into darkness and vanishes. You don't even have to process it before you decide to leap out and follow her, you're so close to it, but you find yourself being restrained. Something, which you recognize to be arms, is wrapped around your waist and you're suddenly calm again. Why? Your mother just disappeared and you're calm?

"KK," You hear a familiar gentle voice call your name. "You're such an idiot." The arms around your waist pull you closer. "Stay" You'd know that voice anywhere. You crane your neck to see him but he's gone.

"Sollux?" You call out, but he's nowhere in view. Turning back around, you find that the door your mother left through has a large rusty lock on it with a keyhole in the middle.

Find Sollux

You shout his name, but receive no response. After making your way up the stairs, you find yourself at the beginning of another hallway, the door at the very end being the door to your old room. You walk up to your door and push it open with a creak.

Instead of walking into what would be your bedroom, you find yourself waltzing into the alleyway where you and Sollux first met. Nothing, at this point, makes sense, but it's not surprising to you, in fact, it all feels like it should be this way.

You shut the door behind you and stand in the alleyway. It doesn't look as gloomy here as it did on the train and at your house. You walk to the door across from you, the back door of Sollux's parent's restaurant. "Sollux?" You attempt, but still no answer. You try to open the door to the restaurant, but it won't budge.

"KK" Your eyes widen, and you turn in the direction of the voice, in time to see a sliver of red thread out the corner of your eye, disappearing around the corner. You begin chasing it, swinging around the corner to find it immediately disappearing around another corner. You keep running and running and it keeps on going out of site, you've lost count of how many times you've turned and nearly give up, but you swing around another corner and find yourself back where you started, hitting something and falling to the floor. You land on your hands and knees and look up to see a boy gazing down at you. You're more than relieved to find that said boy is Sollux.

He extends his hand for you and smiles as you reach up and take it. He pulls you to your feet.

"Why were you running?" He raises a brow, a puzzled look on his face.

"What do you mean? I was chasing after you, dumbass!" He shakes his head, giving you a confused look.

"KK, I've been here the whole time."

"N-no you were running, I saw y-" You try to make sense of what just happened but he interrupts you.

"It doesn't matter. I'm right here and so are you." He sighs, pulling a key out of his pocket. It's an old fashioned key, the big ones you see in movies and you're more than certain it belongs to the lock.

He moves closer to you and you gaze up at him, glancing between his eyes and the key. He clenches they key in his hands and glowers at it.

"This is what you want, right? You want this to so you can leave all this behind and go with your mom." You nod, not sure where he's going. "And you would have left me?" You open your mouth to say something, but… you're stuck on nothing and oddly, feel guilty.

"Sollux, I have nothing left" You manage.

"I'm nothing? Our friendship is nothing?" He walks even closer to you.

"OF COURSE it's something… I just, I don't know how I feel about our relationship sometimes… It's an odd feeling I get sometimes and I just…" You really don't know. Whenever you think to yourself about this topic, you usually brush it off because you end up getting that feeling.

"It's a new feeling isn't it?" He more states than asks. You hesitantly nod.

"Karkat, you have so much right now and you don't even know it. You just don't want to accept it because you're scared to move on. You're scared you might forget about what it was like before. That finding other things in your life is going to kill the once beautiful picture that your life was, aren't you?" You subconsciously nod. "Maybe you should let the feeling you get when we're together flourish instead of running from it."

He hands you the key and opens his palm to reveal a bright red thread. "Listen," He holds up your wrist and begins to tie one end around it, then the other end around his wrist. He holds your hands in both of his and looks you in the eyes. "If you leave, I'm going too." You examine the thread around your wrist. It's loosely tied and frail.

"Sollux, you know I can slip out of this right?" You tug at it and look up at him.

He cups your face, leaning down to you, eliciting a light blush from you. "But you won't." He says simply, letting his face hover a mere inch away from yours. "Will you?" Your eyes are locked on his lips and you can feel his breath flutter around your face and oh god, that sensation is back.

You nod your head in agreement to him, not being able to find any words to say. You find yourself moving closer to him, eyes locked until you, on impulse, lean forward. The heat of his lips is so close to yours and your hearts fluttering and your eyes shut at an unfamiliar warmth on your lips. It feels so right and you want more. You stand on your toes, but the moment you press against him, you jerk awake and find yourself lying in Sollux's bed.

* * *

I'm actually thinking about changing the title of this story because I looked up 'Running' on Fanfiction's search and there were so many other stories with the title. It's going to be similar to the current title, just a bit more original.

I'm such a rebel, jacking my neighbor's Wi-Fi! Excuse me while I go kick some trashcans.


	6. Chapter 6

***Casually updates story after 500 years while whispering 'I'm sorry'***

* * *

**Karkat: Wake up**

You lay there for a moment as you let your thoughts settle, heart racing, eyes flickering around the room. Fragments of Sollux's kiss still tingle over your lips. Sollux…Kiss… Sollux kissed you!? No, _you_ kissed Sollux! All your anxiety catches up to you as you swing yourself upright.

You just kissed your best friend? You _liked_ it?

The dream has you anxious and utterly perplexed. Your heart is thrashing against your chest and the tingle on your lips won't cease so you press your forefingers against your lips. The remnants of the feeling you had when you kissed Sollux are still lingering, prompting you to shake your head as if trying to shake off the dream, letting your face fall into your hands.

It was _just_ a dream. Just a very odd dream. You have odd dreams all the time when you actually sleep. This is one of those odd dreams. Why do you even need to reassure yourself? It was nothing. Reassurance is a thing that is not required as of now.

'_Maybe you should let the feeling you get when we're together flourish instead of running from it._', flows through your thoughts. You growl and pull at your hair, getting up from the bed and check your phone in hopes to have your thoughts wonder on another subject.

No messages. Wow, shocker. Your eyes move to where it says the time and there is absolutely no way it's 3:30 and there is NO WAY you 'napped' for three hours! Why didn't that stupid hacker wake you up!?

All your worries about the dream vanish and you're officially set on bitching at Sollux for letting you nap for so long. You could have been doing something productive in that amount of time as opposed to wasting it.

"Sollux! Where the hell are you?!" You tread heavily down the stairs, making sure your footsteps can be heard from every inch of the house. "Captor!" You walk some ways into the living room, the scowl on your face progressively disappearing with the constant ear ringing silence of the house. "Sollux?" No answer.

You're actually kind of concerned now. He wasn't in his room coding, which surprised you. He's not down here watching T.V. either. "Really Sollux? _You_ might have the mental capacity of that of a five year old, but aren't we a little old for hide and seek?" Nothing. "Ha-ha, very funny, Sollux. This whole situation is such a knee-slapper -" Something unexpectedly yanks at your sides and jolts you, provoking you to make the highest pitched scream known to humankind. You wrench at the grip on your sides and lunge forward, twisting on your heal.

Sollux stands before you, hunched over clenching his stomach. "Oh god- KK, your scream," He laughs some more. You scowl and push him aggressively. You hate, loathe and strongly dislike anything scary with a fiery, burning passion from the depths of hell.

"That wasn't fucking funny! What the ever-loving fuck is wrong with you?!" He stands up straight, grinning like the fool he is.

"I was only joking, KK." He wheedles, smiling.

"Oh, very fucking funny! Comedy has taken quite the turn. Why aren't you a comedian?" You take a deep breath to try and slow you heartbeat. "You _know _I hate shit like that!"

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry! Jeez, chill your tits KK, it was a harmless joke, stop being a baby." He tries raising his arms in a manner that would admit defeat, but you just woke up and are in a full on rage rant right now and you'll be damned if you stop now.

"Fuck '_sorry_'! And I'm not being a fucking baby! You know, we've gone over this, Captor. We have, by far past, established that I-Karkat Vantas, absolutely abhor anything remotely affiliated with frightening because, quite frankly, my scare tolerance for the injudicious genera is _utterly_ low!" You raise your voice probably more than necessary. He rolls his eyes with a frustrated look.

"KK, holy shit, you need to chill out! I was messing with you. _Friends_ do that."

"One hell of a friend you are." You bark out and you immediately recoil from the choice of words because you know that stabbed him somewhere bad. You hate how your talking is more like uncontrollable vomiting… Then again, so are your apologies.

He rolls his eyes and lets out a quick single laugh that's more pained than anything as he turns to walk away and you find yourself lunging forward, tugging at his arm and spewing words that aren't alien to your mouth. "Wait, Sollux, I'm sorry! That was stupid- I'm stupid! I didn't mean it! That was wrong on so many levels and no- you're not a bad friend, you're great and…" He has an unreadable facial expression and that scares you more.

"Are we still friends?" a phrase all too familiar to you. You prepare yourself for him to finally tell you to leave and that he's done with you and all of this and that he regrets everything and actually _mean it_ this time.

You've had some major fights before but they've dwindled a lot in the past year or so to generally just baby-fights. The worst and last major one, about a year ago, was when you started lecturing him on how he didn't appreciate his parents enough and he might have said something that crossed the line. That resulted in you two not talking at all for a little over a month. He ended up apologizing that time though. You had to walk by the restaurant every day to go home and, one day, he waited for you to walk by and pulled you aside. He must have apologized a minimum of ten times and lectured _you _on the whole situation being his fault and not yours when you tried to apologize to him once. You won't ever admit to crying a minimum of once a day during that time. You also won't ever admit to willingly cuddling with him afterward.

He sighs and turns back to you. "Yeah KK. We're still friends." he reassures.

You really, really do feel like you take advantage of him. Every single time you mess up, all you have to do is ask that question and he always says what you want to hear. You have to wonder on a daily basis why he hasn't tried to throw you out of his life yet. It's not like he doesn't have relationships with a bunch of other people.

"Did you have a nice three hour nap?" He breaks the ice, a clear smirk to his words.

"I wasted half of the day, but sure. Fan-fucking-tastic" You cross your arms, halfheartedly glaring at him. He must have took a shower recently because his hair still looks damp. Actually, now that you're not throwing a fit, logically, that's probably where he was at when you left the room. Gosh you're an idiot.

"Oh, and you should probably finish getting ready. I want to leave soon" You look at the time on your phone.

"It's barely almost four. Didn't you say this thing starts at six? Please tell me it's not _that_ long of a drive." You're relieved to see him smile again and make that chuckle he does whenever you do something he deems silly- which is relatively often.

"Yeah, but it'll take about thirty minutes to get to the restaurant and about thirty minutes to get there, give or take. I want to get there thirty minutes prior."

"Well if you'd have woken me up…" You trail off, marching up the stairs to his room, not short of hearing his signature laugh.

You run around for about fifteen minutes to make sure you have everything and anything you might need. You have your phone, a sweater (just in case), and you've placed a large bandage on your wrist that Sollux gave you. It covers a large portion of the cuts, but not entirely. It'll probably be a bitch to get off later.

Sollux is leaning against a wall by the front door, swinging his keys around on his fingers like some wannabe cool kid when you walk into the living area.

You're surprised to see that he's not wearing his contacts, though he has his shades hanging off the color of his shirt. Normally, when you two go places, he has his contacts and only ever wears his shades half the time, most of the time when people won't really be able to see his eyes. At one point, he told you he was probably going to return to wearing his shades because 'Contacts are a pain in the ass, never get them.'

"Ready?" He opens the door for you as you walk over.

"No shit Sherlock." He unlocks his car with a press of one of the buttons on his key chain and you can hear the rattling of keys as he locks the front door behind him.

A while later, Sollux pulls into the restaurant's parking lot. He shuts off the car and gets out, a high pitched beep signifying that it's locked. You walk to the alleyway entrance (the kitchen entrance) as opposed to the front entrance to avoid the hassle of pushing through the crowd of people that's more than likely formed. The place gets pretty full on weekends.

**Be Mituna Captor**

Who's tha- oh wait that's you. Yep. No other name like that around, so that's definitely you.

You're parent's left you in charge today so that's what you've been doing since six o'clock. Sollux is supposed to stop by sometime during the working hours to make sure everything is alright. You can't wait 'till he gets here.

You kind of miss your little bro even though you saw him roughly two weeks ago to tell the family about your girlfriend. Well, she's not your girlfriend anymore; you're engaged now so you guess she's your fiancée until you get married. Her names Latula and she's really, really, really great. You both like/liked skateboarding, which is how you met, but that's a story for another time. She's also really pretty. She has a darker skin tone and long black hair and her eyes are caramel-ish.

"Sollux!" You run over and glomp him while he's in the process of walking through the door, practically jumping at him and making him fall back a few steps. Looking over his shoulder, you also see that Karkat is also here. "Hey Karkat" You greet. He gives you an awkward almost-smile and holds up a hand to acknowledge your salutation.

"Mituna? Get off of me!" Sollux pushes you off of him and you just chuckle and shuffle his hair with a hand, which he whacks away, muttering something inaudible. "What are you doing here?"

"Mom and dad asked if I could run the business for a few days so they don't have to keep paying extra. Duh." Sollux huffs, but you don't know why he's bothered. You just smile.

"Okay well, do you need any help, or do you have everything under control?" Why wouldn't you have everything under control? Running the restaurant is pretty easy. Everyone kind of just knows what to do, sort of like ants… or bees.

"Yeah. Everything is fine. Why? You're not sticking around?" You tilt your head and raise your brows.

"Nah, me and KK are going somewhere. So you can handle by yourself?"

Huh. He and Karkat sure do a lot of stuff together. You and Latula did a lot of stuff together before you started dating. Then again, when you did start dating, you did a lot more stuff together. 'KK' is a nickname. You gave Latula lots of nicknames.

"Are you two dating?" Sollux's eyes widen in shock and Karkat kind of looks akin to a tomato. They're both quick to simultaneously say no. You and Latula used to do _that_ too.

"OK, I get it." You give Sollux a knowing look and he looks at you with a different shock now.

You might act really immature sometimes, but you do have older brother instincts. You actually saw this coming, or at least you called it for Sollux. You're fairly certain that he's bisexual even though he's never said anything, then again he never denied it either. As for Karkat, he confuses you, so you're pretty sure that he's confused too.

"Sorry guys. You can go ahead and _hang out_." Sollux hides a grin and slaps you on the side of the head.

"You're an idiot, Mituna." Sollux jests, turning to leave but you stop him to give him another big hug and whisper very quietly so that Karkat can't hear, 'good luck'. Sollux smiles as he pulls away from you, putting back on a stoic face before Karkat can see.

**Be the baby-Captor?**

You are _not_ the baby-captor. Or at least you don't like to be referred to as '_the baby-captor'_. You may indeed be the youngest captor (right at the moment) but that, in no way, makes you a baby.

**Okay, okay! Shut up and be the **_**youngest **_**Captor**

Now you're offended times two.

_**Please**_** be the youngest Captor**

That's better.

You are the youngest Captor.

You never thought your brother would ever amaze you, but the past two weeks have surely proven you wrong. You were all pretty shocked to find that he proposed to Latula and, even more so, that she said yes. The wedding is still undetermined.

He astonished you for the second time in actually being able to realize how you felt towards Karkat by just looking at you two. You couldn't stand him half the time when he hadn't moved out, and when family gets together, you still can't stand him half the time. Admitted, when it counts, he has his more mature moments that seem to outshine all the childish moments. Like just now. You know he isn't half as ridiculous as he makes himself out to be. His medication actually does do a lot for his ADHD, he just pretends half the time to be so hyper.

After walking around the restaurant for about ten or so minutes to make sure everything is in place, that there's plenty of workers and the place is clean, you call your parents to tell them how everything is going. It's a brief conversation before they ask to talk to Mituna, so you hand the phone to him and he gives it back in about five minutes and you could hear him talking their ears off the whole time. After you receive your phone from Mituna, your mom is on with one final request to talk to Karkat.

**Karkat: Talk to Sollux's mum**

Sollux walks up to you, holding out his cellphone. You burrow your brows.

"Who is it?" You inquire, hesitantly reaching for it.

"It's my mom. I don't know why, so don't ask. Honestly, it's not surprising- the woman adores you." You try your hardest to hide a grin, but you know you failed miserably at that.

You put the phone up to your ear. "Hello?"

"Karkat! Hello, how is everything?" She sounds cheerful like she always does when she addresses you.

"Um, everything's fine."

"Ah good, good, do you guys need anything, enough to eat?" She questions. Her accent isn't very thick at all, but it's definitely evident. You can't help but let out a very brief laugh.

"No, we're good. Sollux actually cooked breakfast this morning."

"Cooked? ...Morning?!" She sounds genuinely shocked, eliciting a smile from you.

"Yeah, surprising, isn't it? He _actually_ did things."

"Yes! How you get him to wake up? I have to throw things at him!" You've long passed turned away from everyone and stepped out of the restaurant and into the alleyway, certain that you look like a grinning fool right now.

"I didn't actually; he was just up making pancakes."

"Oh!? Hit him on the head for me!" That's a request you can carry out, so you giggle and tell her you will.

"Sollux really likes you if he goes out of his way like that. I sometime have to threaten to take his computer away." Then again, you've made threats surrounding his computer on more than one occasion.

"Yeah, I guess." You smile as you speak, kicking a pebble around the alley.

"Okay, well I let you go now. And remember, hit him on the head!"

"Alright, alright, Bye" You snicker and smile as you hang up.

You turn back around to head into the restaurant to give Sollux back his phone and tell him you're ready to go, but as you turn, He's right there behind you, smirking.

"What?" You grin, faintly. He walks towards you, rolling his eyes and smiling.

"Stop trash talking me to my mom. I swear you and that woman talk like your best friends." He takes the phone back as you hold it out to him.

"Pff. Better than you." You tease, resulting in him raising his brows at you scoffing.

"Fine. Give me back my shirt. Now. Right now." He jokes, playfully, acting like he's going to take it off by tugging the sides up so you push him away.

"No way! It looks better on me anyways." You strike a model pose, putting and hand on your hip while jutting said hip out.

"Heh, may I remind you that I pulled it off when I was fourteen. Four years later and you're _just now _pulling it off?" You're both walking to his car now.

"I'm just putting it back in style and am _still_ pulling it off better than you!" You tease. He unlocks the car with the button on his keychain, and you take this opportunity to carry out his mother's request.

"Hey Sollux?"

"Ye-OW what the hell?!"

"That's from your mom!" You run to the car for cover, jumping into his car and locking it before he gets over. He unlocks it with his button thing and you quickly lock it again.

You two spend the next while locking and unlocking his car.

**Calm down**

Who's not calm? You're calm. You are one hundred percent composed.

It's not like you have no idea where you're going. Or that on top of that, you're in an isolated area.

Yeah. You are perfectly A-O fucking K.

Or at least you would be if he hadn't just turned into some dark, murky trail leading into the depths of a forest.

Okay. He just stopped the car. In the woods. With nobody around.

GOSH DARN IT KARKAT! GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER. This is Sollux.

You can't even think logically right now. Every piece of your mind is thinking back to your dream. The feeling, the things he said, the _kiss. _

You are Karkat Vantas and you might not be A- O fucking K.

**Be the designated driver**

That would be you since Karkat can't drive to save his life. He managed to get his driver's license by some miracle. The few times he was behind the wheel with you though, you were on two wheels a good portion of the time.

After wasting about ten minutes at the restaurant, because you and Karkat were at war with the locks on your car, you finally got on the road and are currently five or so minutes from your destination.

Karkat, from what you can see, looks a little on edge. He seemed even more on edge when you turned into a dark road through some forest. You don't think stopping in said road helped ease him much.

"Why did we stop?" He looks over at you like he's going to jump out of the car if he doesn't like your response.

You know he's not going to like your response and there's really no way of wording it in a way that would sound any less suspicious.

"Okay. I know how weird this is going to sound, but bear with me."

"Shoot. I don't think anything will be shocking at this point." You sit silently for a minute, trying to find the right words to say. You didn't take into consideration how suspicious the ride here was going to be.

"Okay. I need you to cover your eyes… and ears."

Wow Shakespeare, there must have been a better way of saying it than that. Karkat really looks like he isn't surprised though. In fact, he simply shakes his head before he just takes out his phone, plugs in a pair of headphone and puts them in his ears and tugs a hoodie over his head, tightening the strings on the hood so that only his lower face is visible.

"That works too." You chuckle.

**Be confused but hardly surprised Karkat**

When the car begins to move again, it stops soon after for a few moments and the proceeds at a slow pace. You stop for a third time, and you think you're parked but the car is still running.

You feel your hood get loosened as a hand snakes in and tugs out an ear bud.

"You can stop now." Sollux informs, leaning back to his original position with a satisfied grin on. You lean forward, raising your brows before hesitantly looking around.

You're in a large grassy field and there's quite a few cars scattered around, becoming more frequent the further up your vision travels. When you look where there's a long line of cars, there's a large white screen up high with something being projected on it.

It takes you a while to piece together, but using your prior romcom knowledge you manage. Sollux has brought you to a drive-in movie theater.

You look to Sollux, who's sitting smugly in his chair looking at you.

"Worth the hassle?" He smirks at you.

"Well, that depends on the movie." You lie. It really doesn't depend on the movie at all. You're just happy that he brought you out to this.

"Well, it just so happens that the first movie to come on is Titanic." Your mouth drops.

"But, you hate Titanic..." You've been such an ass today and he took you to a drive-in movie theater, like, forty minutes away to see a movie he hates with you.

He shrugs and leans back, stretching before looking at you.

"Yeah, but, I _don't _hate you." He charms. You look down, trying to hide the faint smile that's spreading across your face. You wonder what the other movies are going to be playing.

"What's movies are coming on next?" He looks down guiltily and suddenly, the sinking feeling you had earlier returns.

"Movie" He corrects. "… and that's the catch.. eheheh."

* * *

**The only excuse I can think of is school. But that's a lame excuse huihuihui**

**Bless you all for being patient. I would have killed like, seven men in that amount time.**

**As for Sollux's mom's accent, I kind of just went based on how my friend's mom talks so sorry if anyone is offended! **


End file.
